1st Edition
The Shakespeare North Playhouse Replica Theatres and Their Uses
This collection celebrates the opening of the Shakespeare North Playhouse (SNP). After discussion of its genesis and development by four people pivotal to its progress at different stages of the project, this book explores different aspects of the SNP’s purpose and functions across three broad categories: buildings and spaces, practices and performance, and community arts and education. Various chapters offer answers to fundamental questions about replica theatres, including: Why do we build them? What do they do? How do we use them? In the course of these discussions, the purposes, potential, and programming of the SNP are discussed in relation to other Globe-type replicas in the UK and beyond. Contributors to this collection analyse key academic and practice-based concerns within their fields of expertise connected to the use (and misuse) of replica theatres to suggest the ways in which they can be used to drive research and practice in contemporary Shakespearean performance, connect with young people, and serve local communities.
This book will appeal to academics, students, and practitioners interested in historical and contemporary approaches to Shakespeare in the fields covered. It should also appeal to general readers with an interest in the topics, particularly in Merseyside and the North-West region.
Part 1 Origins and Development
1. Why Build a Replica Theatre in Knowsley? The Story of a Journey from a Vision to Reality
Kathy Dacre
2. Making the Shakespeare North Playhouse: Paradoxes, Entanglements, and Fluidities
Elspeth Graham
3. The Shakespeare North Playhouse: A Story of Passion, Policy, and Pragmatism
Ian Tabbron
4. Interview with Nicholas Helm, Architect of the Shakespeare North Playhouse
Nicholas Helm, Interviewed by Tim Keenan
Part 2 Buildings and Spaces
5. Chasing the 90%: Establishing the Facts about the Cockpit-in-Court
Tim Keenan
6. Past Theatres and New Spaces: Shifting Meanings for Actors and Audiences
Frank Whately
7. Interview with Jim Warren, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the American Shakespeare Center, 1988–2017 and Current Founding Artistic Director of the American Globe Center
Jim Warren, Interviewed by Tim Keenan
8. Dealing with the Elizabethan Edifice Complex
Tim Fitzpatrick
Part 3 Practices and Performance
9. Finding Our Light
Oliver Senton
10. The Accidental Time Traveller
Callum Coates
11. Interview with Ben Crystal, SNP Associate Artist and Independent Author/Actor/Creative Producer/Theatre Practitioner
Ben Crystal, Interviewed by Tim Keenan
12. "Making the Invisible Visible": The Shakespeare North Playhouse as Replica Theatre and Research Instrument in PaR
Ildiko Solti
Part 4 Community Arts and Education
13. Commedia in the Community
Olly Crick
14. Community Considerations for Shakespeare North Playhouse
Rob Brannen
15. Cultivating Young People’s Connections to Shakespeare North Playhouse
Carly Henderson
16. "Shakespeare on Your Doorstep": Opportunities for Inclusion and Participation in the Educational and Community Work of Shakespeare North Playhouse
Jennifer Kitchen
Biography
Tim Keenan is Senior Lecturer in Drama at Liverpool Hope University, UK. He is an early modernist with a focus on seventeenth-century theatre production.
